Story+2009-11-13+Auburn+Hills,+MI

“Good evening, Ohio! (crowd cheers and boos) good evening, Detroit! (crowd cheers)... (…) //Now my home’s in the Meadowlands…but tonight Ohio’s going up flames// (crowd boos) //yeah, where the blood is spilled, the arena’s filled and the Pistons play the game// (crowd cheers)…”
 * 13.11.09 Auburn Hills, MI, intro to “Wrecking Ball”**

“Good evening, Ohio! (not much response, some boo)…(Steve informs Bruce that they are in fact in Michigan, not Ohio)…good evening, Michigan! (crowd cheers) I’ve been waiting forty years to fuck that one up (chuckles)(crowd cheers) finally! no more of them nightmares any more (chuckles) alright…Detroit! (crowd cheers) fuck…well, we’ve come all the way to fucking Michigan tonight (crowd cheers) to fulfil our solemn vow…to rock the fucking house! (crowd cheers)(chuckles)…and I promise you…that we’re here to more than just rock the house…if it’s the last thing we do, we’re gonna build a house here tonight! (crowd cheers) we’re gonna build it out of hope and faith and music and spirit and Michigan soul (crowd cheers) and noise…now tonight the mighty E Street Band is gonna bring down the power of the music on you…but Michigan, we need you to bring the noise! (crowd cheers)…(?)…now sing it like yo mean it…”
 * 13.11.09 Auburn Hills, MI, middle of “Working on a Dream”**

“Woo!...I’m alright, I’m alright (chuckles)…that’s every frontman’s //the// fucking nightmare (chuckles) oh, finally, finally the dreams will stop…we’ve been, had a couple of years of…of touring, I guess starting back at the “Magic”-record in 2007 and, uh (crowd cheers) we wanna thank everybody for supporting us over those, over the past couple of years, coming out and seeing our shows…our new music and our old music and as we got towards the end of the tour we’re trying to think of something special we can do for, uh, for the fans and make it interesting and fun for us and so we’ve been playing our albums…as nights are (?)(crowd cheers) and, uh, we’ve played “Born in the U.S.A,” we’ve played, uh, “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” we’ve played “Wild and the Innocent,” we played, uh…“The River” the other night…oh, at least at sixty I (?) the onset of early Alzheimer’s (chuckles) but, uh, this was a record, I guess this was probably our most important record because we were (crowd cheers) we had two records out…we’d put two records and they hadn’t gone anywhere and we were close to being dropped from our record label and, uh…and this record came along and it sort of, I guess it started a life-long conversation that I’ve had with you, that you’ve had with me (crowd cheers) this was kind of our big introduction to, uh, to one another where I asked a lot of the, I asked a lot of the main questions I think I’ve spent the past thirty or thirty-five years trying to find, find my way through…and, uh…so tonight for Michigan (crowd cheers)…”
 * 13.11.09 Auburn Hills, MI, intro to “Thunder Road”**

“//Till the end…till the end…//till the end…just me and you, Baby…just me and you, Darling…(sings without words)…come a little bit closer …come a little bit closer…//till the end//…//until the end…//”
 * 13.11.09 Auburn Hills, MI, middle of “Backstreets”**

“(Crowd cheers) Thank you (crowd cheers) these are the guys who made the record (crowd cheers) and Phantom Dan Federici (crowd cheers) thank you (crowd cheers)…”
 * 13.11.09 Auburn Hills, MI, after “Jungleland”**

“Where am I? (crowd: “Michigan”) where am I? (crowd: “Michigan”) where am I? (crowd: “Michigan”)…”
 * 13.11.09 Auburn Hills, MI, intro to “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man”**

“Where am I? (crowd: “Michigan”) where am I? (crowd: “Michigan”) where am I? (crowd: “Michigan”) where am I? (crowd: “Michigan”) …”
 * 13.11.09 Auburn Hills, MI, intro to “Detroit Medley”**

“Is there anybody alive out there? (crowd cheers) is there anybody alive in Detroit? (crowd cheers)…”
 * 13.11.09 Auburn Hills, MI, towards the end of “Badlands”**

“Thank you (crowd cheers) thank you, Detroit, thank you (crowd cheers) woo! damn…Detroit, Auburn Hills…where the fuck actually am I? (chuckles) thank you…we’ve, uh…we’ve had a great couple of years out on the road and I wanna thank everybody for coming out to the show tonight (crowd cheers) thank you once again for supporting the mighty E Street Band (crowd cheers) that’s right…in its pursuit for truth, justice and a good time (chuckles) tonight we have some friends in the house, folks from Focus Hope, Focus Hope’s a nationally recognized civil and human rights organization based right here in Detroit, Michigan (crowd cheers) they feed 41,000 local low-income seniors, mothers and children each month, I know I don’t have to tell the folks of Detroit of what hard, of what hard times are out there…I know all you gotta do is look around at your neighbors and pick up the newspapers to see the crushing unemployment which I know in Detroit is as hard as anywhere else in the country, organizations like Focus Hope, very often grassroots organizations like that are the only thing that stands between kids going to bed hungry or with food in their stomach, if you get a chance, support your neighbors, support Focus Hope (crowd cheers) this was a song written by Stephen Foster in 1855…you know, the more things change the more they stay the same, this is “Hard times come again no more”…”
 * 13.11.09 Auburn Hills, MI, intro to “Hard Times”**

“Thank you Detroit for coming out to the show (crowd cheers)… (…) Little Steven (crowd cheers) Curt Ramm (crowd cheers) Curtis King (crowd cheers) Garry W. Tallent (crowd cheers) Sister Soozie Tyrell (crowd cheers) the Mighty Max Weinberg (crowd cheers) Roy Bittan (crowd cheers) Charlie Giordano (crowd cheers) Cindy Mizelle (crowd cheers) one of the greatest guitarists in the world, Nils Lofgren (crowd cheers) saxophonist…man of letters…he’s bigger than Shakespeare…the biggest author you’ve ever seen, Clarence “Big Man” Clemons (crowd cheers) Michigan! (crowd cheers) Michigan! (crowd cheers) Michigan! (crowd cheers) Michigan! (crowd cheers) Michigan! (crowd cheers) you’ve just seen the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, earth-shocking, hard-rocking, booty-shaking, earth-quaking, love-making, Viagra-taking, history-making, legendary (crowd: “E Street Band”)(crowd cheers)...”
 * 13.11.09 Auburn Hills, MI, intro to “American Land”**

“Where am I? (crowd: “Detroit”) where am I? (crowd: “Detroit”) Guess I'm in Michigan, Steve!…Help me out… (…)(Bruce leaves Steve at the mike to sing the two lines starting from “Dynamite’s in the belfry” which Steve doesn’t seem to know)…”
 * 13.11.09 Auburn Hills, MI, intro to “Rosalita”**

“Let me hear a little bit, Roy (Roy plays)…a song by a great artist from Detroit…Jackie Wilson…can we take this thing any higher, Detroit? (crowd cheers) can we take this thing any higher, Michigan? (crowd cheers) are any of you fuckers actually from Ohio? (chuckles)(crowd boos) that ain’t so bad (chuckles)…here we go, Band…”
 * 13.11.09 Auburn Hills, MI, intro to “Higher and Higher”**

//Compiled by Johanna Pirttijärvi//